JAPAN GETTING INTO ALGAE

Scientists Plan Algae ‘Alchemy’ to Turn Paddies Into Oil Fields
Shigeru Sato and Yuji Okada (w/Stuart Biggs, Alex Devine, Reed Landberg), April 19, 2010 (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

"As Japan’s rice fields turn fallow and its farming communities decline, a new army of workers is preparing to make the countryside fertile again. This time the crop is motor fuel and the laborers are microscopic algae.

"At least 75 developers globally are studying algae, which has the potential to generate more energy per hectare than any other crop used for making fuel…The technology has attracted the U.S. Department of Energy and big oil including Exxon Mobil Corp., which plans to spend as much as $600 million on research over five years."

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"Japan abandoned a $132 million algae project in the 1990s, when oil prices dropped below $10 a barrel and climate change took a back seat to reviving the economy in what became known as “the Lost Decade.” Now companies including Toyota Motor Corp. and refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co. may join a study into the microorganisms that can turn waste water into oil, scrub carbon dioxide out of the air and reduce dependence on fossil fuels…

"Microalgae use sunlight, water and carbon to produce oxygen and biofuel through photosynthesis. The plants, which look like a green film on the surface of water, can be cultivated on marginal land in open ponds or in “photobioreactors,” incubators that protect it from contamination and maintain a steady temperature for more intensive production…Emissions from factories and power plants can be pumped into the reactors…"

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"Algae are more productive than crops because they keep making fuel regardless of the weather…All the transport fuel needs of the U.S. could in theory be met by algae cultivated in an area the size of Belgium…Algae is among “second-generation” biofuels, designed to overcome the disadvantages of fuels from food grains…Riots broke out in cities from Cairo to Jakarta in 2008 after food prices soared…Researchers are now pursuing agricultural waste, fungus and other fuel sources that don’t compete with food crops.

"The Botryococcus algae being studied by Tsukuba University produces fuel that’s almost identical to diesel…Costs [would be] about 800 yen a liter, compared with gasoline, which retails for about 130 yen in Tokyo…[Researchers say they] can reduce costs sufficiently by 2022 to compete with ordinary oil products…Japan could supply enough algae biofuel to replace all the oil products currently used to supply the country’s transport, power plants and heating if photobioreactors were installed on the country’s unused farmland…The Cabinet approved a climate bill last month that calls for the expansion of renewable energy more than three-fold to supply 10 percent of Japan’s energy needs by 2020…"